If you are looking to visit one of the tallest buildings in the world or, for that matter, experience one of the top ten observation decks in the world, you might want to start looking outside the USA. The Willis Tower in Chicago, IL currently ranks as the 9th tallest observation deck in the world and the only high rise in the United States in the top ten. However, it won't stay this way for very much longer. By 2020 the Willis Tower is expected to fall all the way to #17, and #18 by 2021.

The observation deck height is a far more meaningful number than the overall architectural height, as we know nearly all high rises add absurdly long antenna to the top of the towers for additional height "cred," which doesn't do us much good, besides making it harder to fit the full building in the frame of a picture.

Most of the new towers that are under development and are scheduled to be completed by 2020 are concentrated in to two regions: the Middle East and Asia. These markets have been booming recently and the competition for world records has been fierce in that part of the world.

But don't feel bad for our Willis Tower just yet. Barclays, one of the largest banks in the world, has released the SkyScraper Theory (ominous music). The Skyscraper Theory tries to draw a correlation between the completion of a tallest building in the world and an economic crisis. The theory goes one step further and alludes that the rate of the increase in height may also reflect just how big of a crisis there might be. So if your country is building a mega tall skyscraper...beware!

So if visiting the tallest observation deck in the world is on your bucket list you will need to start booking your tickets to Asia, but, hey, they could be really cheap after 2020 if that theory is correct.

Daikin Industries is a leading air conditioning manufacturer, with products sold in over 140 countries. The company currently in the process of constructing an enormous manufacturing facility in Houston, TX, which will replace its current facility in Tennessee. The space will include a 1.8 million square foot distribution center, 1.7 million square feet of manufacturing space with a 196,500 square foot mezzanine, a 231,598 square foot lab, and a 202,600 square foot office. In total, the building will take up 1.8 million square feet.

If you are looking to visit one of the tallest buildings in the world or, for that matter, experience one of the top ten observation decks in the world, you might want to start looking outside the USA. The Willis Tower in Chicago, IL currently ranks as the 9th tallest observation deck in the world and the only high rise in the United States in the top ten. However, it won't stay this way for very much longer. By 2020 the Willis Tower is expected to fall all the way to #17, and #18 by 2021.

Dubai is no stranger to world records, in fact it appears that Dubai wants to be the destination for all of the world's structural records. The title of world's tallest is never an easy title to own. Competing building projects are always watching and attempting to go higher. Just like the Burj Khalifa the official height of that building was kept as secret as the Coca-Cola recipe until it was nearly complete. And, if you do become the world's tallest then it is only a matter of time before the next project comes along and out does you. For example, see what's happening now in the arena for tallest wood building. As Dubai has done in the past with the Burj Khalifa, they did not look to build a new high rise that was just a few feet taller than the last one, they looked to build the tallest possible building at the time. That put the Burj about 320 meters taller than any other skyscraper, and their newest attraction, The Dubai Eye, will be no different.

Buildings have been made with wood for thousands of years, but those buildings rarely make it above a couple stories high. Due to building codes and requirements, non-combustible materials like concrete and steel are required to be used in most commercial buildings. Typical timber buildings, like many North American houses will easily burn in the right conditions, but more and more projects are using cross-laminated timber (CLT) which has excellent non-combustion properties

There’s no doubt that construction industry has some very impressively sized and powerful machines out there and unfortunately not many of us get to actually use them. Since most of will never be able to drive one of these, we can at least marvel at videos of them. Youtuber JD Rock recently put together a video compilation of the 10 largest construction machines in the world, which you can find at the bottom of this post. To help you understand just how big these things are, the descriptions of each will be listed directly below this paragraph.

The people over at Gizmodo and Safer America have put together a stunning visualization of "The Human Cost of Construction". It is an amazing and often untold look into just how dangerous of a profession construction can be.

Biggest, tallest, heaviest, fastest, whatever “–est” you are, there’s probably a chance for you to break a record doing it. Guinness World records has been publishing their book of records for the past 60 years and the records range from weird to extraordinary. Construction world records are no different. The list below compiles the most interesting construction records we could find. If we missed one, let us know in the comments below!

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